Champagne Billecart-Salmon 2005 offers hints of puffed buckwheat and licorice wood that carries the finish toward a delicious chalky minerality.

Winebow of Connecticut welcomed a 2005 vintage of cuvée from Champagne Billecart-Salmon. The Clos Saint-Hilaire originates from a single enclosed 1-hectare plot of old vines planted with Pinot Noir in Mareuil-sur-Aÿ in 1964. The new 2005 vintage is entirely vinified in oak casks and displays a “mesmerizing and expressive charm” bursting with rich and intense flavors. On the palate, one finds hints of puffed buckwheat and licorice wood that carries the finish toward a delicious chalky minerality. Its label made of cherry wood, sourced from sustainable forests, enhances the sense of authenticity and singularity of this cuvée. Each individual wooden label is distinguished by differences in grain and color, which makes each bottle as unique as the personality of the rare vintage it holds. Billecart-Salmon was first and foremost the result of a union. A union between Nicolas François Billecart and Elisabeth Salmon who, married in 1818, founded their own Champagne House in Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, a village near Epernay. At their side was Louis Salmon, Elisabeth’s brother, an oenologist. Today, Mathieu Roland-Billecart, the seventh generation of the family, heads the House, two centuries since it first began producing its award-winning vintages.